I love it, I had the Cambridge Audio DAC Magic 200m prior to that and upgraded now that I’m all in on this HiFi stuff.
It’s an amazing DAC! But I’ve only listened to PCM and MQA stuff through it.
Pro’s
- Incredible bass presentation. Such smooth and well transitioned bass.
- Detailed and crisp, but surprisingly warm (probably do to the strong bass).
- Awesome sound stage depth! I just smile listening to atmospheric ambient music because the depth is phenomenal.
- Excellent detail and separation.
- Bluetooth is great, if you want it.
Con’s
- $1,500 and no headphone jack.
- No chance at customer service and product support (if I had to guess?) and a useless manual.
- Can come a cross (with certain multi channel and heavily mixed recordings) as having some tonal brightness. Like certain sounds that weren’t as apparent are overly forward and loud in contrast to the rest of the music.
It was a toss up between the X26 Pro and the RME ADI-2 FS Ultra ($1,300) for me, but I really like the Dual Saber sound and can best describe this DAC as a DAC Magic 200m on steriods. Everything the DAC magic does the Gustard does better.
But I’d say overall I have zero regrets, but again, big bass, so with some systems could be a problem.